Not In The First Wave

Good Friday morning! Today is the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy beach. The stories tell of the first wave of troops to go ashore. The horror and the heroism make dramatic novels and movies. Many thousands of men and women were not assigned to that first wave. They were sailors stationed on ships, nurses awaiting their tough but necessary duty in hospitals, pilots flying overhead, supply and support personnel awaiting the clearing of the beaches, and many more back in England staged for the breakout from the beach head. Those personnel were just as necessary to the overall operation as that first wave, but they didn't get the same historical coverage from the writers. We may have that same position in our Christian duty.

You probably weren't the first missionary to penetrate the dark jungles of a far island nation. Perhaps you have not been called to be a missionary at all. I was not the first Christian writer (by a long ways) to begin putting a devotional writing out there on the Internet. My Christian brothers are with a very few exceptions still working and living right here where I met them. A few have moved on to other towns and cities in the same country. A small number have answered the call to active foreign missions. But even they were not in the first wave of missionaries to 'hit the beach'. Be that as it may, God will use every one of us and consider our service just as important as Paul's, or Peter's, or Augustine, or the many other famous Christian names we hear often.

Paul gave credit to those who traveled with him, and he was hurt when someone needed to go home or leave him in some city. We are important to each other, no matter what our calling from God, just as Paul's brothers and sisters in Christ were vital to his ministry. We may be support personnel in a big operation that we cannot see, but each has a part to play in God's plan. Our place may not be at the tip of the spear; you or I may be strictly a spear-handle Christian supporting that tip way out there. We may never be listed on Earth with Billy Graham, Max Lucado, Chuck Swindoll, or Adrian Rogers, but God has given you and me a position in His army. When the roll is called up yonder, we'll be there!

To God belongs the glory,
Bucky